Success Quote by Gerard Arpey

The heresy here is quiet but pointed: stop worshiping low costs as a moral virtue. Arpey is talking like an airline CEO who’s watched entire business models crater on the altar of “efficiency,” and he’s reminding you that cost is only a sin when it’s unpriced. The line works because it reframes expense as a deliberate bet, not a leak. You can spend more than competitors and still win, but only if you can explain - in dollars, not vibes - what that spending buys and who will pay for it.

The intent is managerial clarity with a warning label. “Activities and product attributes” is corporate-speak for all the things companies love to do because they feel premium: extra service layers, nicer materials, more generous policies, higher-touch support, better reliability. The subtext is that differentiation is expensive, and executives often confuse “different” with “valuable.” Arpey’s test is brutal and clean: if your higher costs don’t return at least equal revenue uplift, you’re not differentiating; you’re subsidizing customers who won’t reward you.

Context matters: Arpey ran American Airlines through an era when carriers were squeezed between ruthless low-cost competitors and unforgiving legacy cost structures. In that world, “just be cheaper” is either impossible (due to labor and infrastructure) or self-destructive. So he’s articulating a discipline airlines learned the hard way: either be low-cost, or be unmistakably worth the surcharge, and measure that worth relentlessly. The “and hopefully more” tacked on at the end isn’t optimism; it’s survival math.